Monday, April 8, 2013
A Scanner Darkly. Part 2
I was very surprised to find out that Donna was an undercover narcotics agent just like Arctor. Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I was hoping that Arctor would take Donna up to Oregon to live her happily ever after in the snow like she wanted. But, that didn't happen; she just took him to New Path and left him there. PKD did a great job depicting drug culture, drug use, and what drugs do to people's brains in this novel. It was interesting to me that he threw German in the text randomly. I was very surprised at the ending. I thought Arctor was completely gone and that he was truly just a living vegetable. But, it was neat that he was purposefully selected to get addicted to Substance D, go to New Path, and find information about where they got their funding. His brain was still functioning and he knew what he was supposed to to at New Path. I thought his life was over, but he was still working, in a way, while he was in rehab. I didn't think I liked the book after reading the first half, but the second half really picked up and was way more interesting. I wanted to know more about Barris; it was a turn to find out that they were really after him and not Arctor. How did Hank know that Fred was Arctor? Did he know all along? Did Hank know he was having Fred watch himself as Arctor when he gave him the assignment? It's crazy that his brain was so fried that he had multiple personality disorder and had no clue that he was Arctor. Overall, the story line was good. I liked that it wasn't completely in a different world centuries into the future like all of his other books.
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That's an interesting point you have: I too thought he was completely gone, but I never thought about how his police training would kick in and he would still be able to do his job despite going through massive withdrawals from Substance D and the two hemispheres of his brain working independently. They picked the right guy for the job, I just feel bad that he had to go through it.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten about the German passages in the novel. I tried to look up some of the translations for them, but I was not very successful. The few that I did translate, basically were reiterating what was said. I think it may have been a book or something he was quoting in German.
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